Screaming Monday

Today is monday. Dave has mondays off so after we finished our chores (we had mounds of dishes to do because we spent the day making a cake for a friend's engagement party. I'll find the picture... And there was a superfluous amount of icing and caking and such involved in this process, so there were sooo many dishes. Oh, and there was a colorful spread of clean clothes taking of residence on our bed... still putting those away) we decided to go for a walk with little Corrina. But being overtired, she woke up in the middle and could not get back to sleep so was forced to wail at the top of her lungs until we arrived home and could help her sleep. So while i would usualy agree with some people that personal music devices are a nuisance and prevent people from listening to the nature around them or conversing with others, today (and other days) i have appreciated that they save me the embarassment of walking past people who are thinking "bad mother... listen to that screaming baby". Of course i know that the majortiy of people are not thinking this, especially people who themselves have/had babies, but i will admit that i feel like they think that about me: Cooley's Looking Glass. Said walk certainly was not the joyeous occasion we intended it to be, but we still got our excersize and are happy campers!

Recently i have found more time to read and i have choosen the book Abba's Child by Brennan manning. It is an extraordinary look at behaving and living with the understanding and trust that God loves us completely, not because he has to, but because he wants to. He likes us... imagine that. There are so many challenging thoughts in this book and i am going to take a moment to share a few that impacted me greatly this morning:
"God calls His children to a countercultural lifestyle of forgiveness in a world that demands an eye for an eye-and even worse. But if loving God is the first commandment, and loving our neighbor proves our love for God, and if it is easy to love those who love us, then loving our enemies must be the filial badge that identifies Abba's Children. The summons to live as forgiven and forgiving children is radically inclusive. it is addressed not only to the wife whose husband forgot their wedding anniversary but also to parents whose child was slaughtered by a drunken driver, to the victims of slanderous accusations, to the poor living in flithy boxes who see the rich drive by in Mercedes...The dmenads of forgiveness are so daunting that they seem humanlu impossible. The exigencies of forgiveness are simply beyond the capacity of ungraced human will. Only reckless confidence in a Source greater than ourselves can empower us to fogive the wounds inflicted by others. In Boundary moments such as these there is only one place to go-Calvary. Stay there a long time and watch as Abba's Only-Begotten dies utterly alone in bloddy disgrace...The crucified Christ is not merely a heroic example to the church: He is the power and wisdom of God, a living force in His present riseness, tranforming our lives and enabling us to exten the hand of reconciliation to our enermies. Understanding triggers the compassion that mkes forgiveness possible... The heartfelt compassion that hastens forgivenss matures when we discover where our enemy cries. "

Wow, that was a mouthful! But such an excellent bite of wisdom. Now i shall work on swallowing it all and implementing it in my everyday. Forgiveness is so important because with it (perhaps preceeding it) comes the compassion for people that Jesus daily exemplified. Because God has such tender compassion for us he has perfect acceptance of us. How wonderful. We are God's beloved.
One last quote of a quote in the book:
"Henri Nouwen's words are incisive here: 'What is required is to become the Beloved in common places of my daily existence and, bit by bit, to close the gap that exists between what i know myself to be and the countless specific realities of everyday life. Becoming the Beloved is pulling the truth revealed to me from above down into the ordinariness of what i am, in fact, thinking of, talking about, and doing from hour to hour."

Now i will share some pictures with you... random pictures.

This is our good friend Ernie! He is a great guy. Him and Corrina were chillaxing at our friends engagement party this weekend.
This is a cake I made for our friends engagement party. Her colors are green and pink (those are little pink, yellow and white flowers... sorry small pic). Dave helped me out with the decorating. It tasted delicious and wasn't too hard to do. I wish everyone could have enjoyed the cake. Congratulations Odie and Zach (i fyou ever stop in here). See you at your wedding! Oh yes, and in the picture below you can see our new chairs. Super comfy, and they don't fall apart when you sit on them.